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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27976221">Katabasis</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePlotMurderer/pseuds/ThePlotMurderer'>ThePlotMurderer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Post-MOM, References to Union X, Soriku - Freeform, Soriku Week 2020, Soriku angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:21:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,684</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27976221</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePlotMurderer/pseuds/ThePlotMurderer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Riku undertakes a perilous journey into a mysterious new world to find the person he cares about most. It's a long, lonely road, but luckily he has some unexpected company in the form of his OTHER fairy godmother...</p>
<p>For Soriku Week 2020!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Katabasis</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Riku had known darkness. Had walked in it, breathed in it, been born into and revived through it. Darkness held no fear for him anymore. It was an old friend. Its blankness was comforting, like a blanket on a stormy night. Its emptiness was peace rather than madness.</p>
<p>So, it was not with fear that he regarded the long, sweeping road of shadow that awaited him on the other side of the Fairy Godmother’s door. He had expected a journey, and he was used to darkness.</p>
<p>He would go to the end of all things…as far as <em>could</em> be gotten, if it meant Sora was waiting at the other end.</p>
<p>This veil between worlds was different from the Realm of Darkness. The blackness of the sky, of the mist that clung to the high rocky peaks that were this country’s only geography, didn’t feel cold and damp the way the bleak shores Riku had once sat by with Sora had.</p>
<p>There was no feeling at all. No temperature, no wind. Riku supposed he could hold his breath forever and not even feel faint.</p>
<p>This was a place of undeath. There was nothing alive, there was…nothing at all. Just the winding rocky road, spiraling inexorably down the high rocky spire.</p>
<p>Riku may have been walking this path for hours or days or weeks. Time was immaterial here. The foot of the mountain was no clearer than it had been when he’d first materialized at the summit, though the summit itself had long since been swallowed by the mists.</p>
<p>Which, if nothing else, proved he was <em>going</em> somewhere. Riku had been wondering.</p>
<p>From time to time he would stop to rest, sit on the promontory looking out over the wastes, wondering what lay on the other side. The enigmatic fictional world Ansem the Wise had described with such dread.</p>
<p>It was funny. As boys, he and Sora had dreamed of slipping in and out of stories. Riku had had a fleet of toy sailors and model boats. They’d reenact battles from history class, from Sora’s comics, from games they’d played time and again. Being able to escape into fantasy was…well, fantastical. Isn’t that what it was for?</p>
<p>True fantasy was different, though. It was wonderous and spectacular, sure, but laced with danger. Riku sometimes wondered if the boy he’d been would believe the man he’d become.</p>
<p>If he <em>was</em> a man, a true, grown man. Sometimes, he felt more terrified than that little boy had ever been.</p>
<p>“It has to end someplace,” he told himself once, twice, more times than he could keep track. Would the path open up at the bottom of the mountain? Would he be left alone in a valley or a gulch, with no sense of which way to go next?</p>
<p>Might she have been wrong? After all, if the way to get to…wherever this was really was as perilous as Ansem had described and Kairi had remembered (or, well, Kairi had remembered <em>other</em> Ansem, pre-Ansem, Xehanort telling her), it was likely even the Fairy Godmother might not be as infallible as Riku had…</p>
<p>There was a sound from somewhere above, a sort of sharp thrumming, as of someone frenetically blowing into a wind instrument.</p>
<p>Riku froze in place, his Keyblade materializing in his hand before he’d even completed a thought. There was something up there in the hazy fogbank that shrouded the mountaintop, and the ethereal music was coming from it. A light, sharp and concentrated, descending with surety closer and closer to earth.</p>
<p><em>A shooting star,</em> he thought feverishly, before remembering that there <em>were</em> no stars, just as there was no moon, or sun, or anything, because this was nowhere, and there was nothing here but him and the bright, shiny, musical…</p>
<p><em>Green</em> orb of light.</p>
<p>Riku adjusted his stance, watching as the will o’ the wisp drew parallel with him on the path, “Maleficent.”</p>
<p>“Hello, child,” the orb of light expanded into a pillar of emerald sulfuric flame, the familiar silhouette of the horned witch appeared, standing on the mountain trail as if she’d been walking with him the entire way, “You don’t seem surprised to see me.”</p>
<p>“Why should I be?” he managed, “It’s dark, bleak, and depressing. If I were you, it’d be here or the Radiant Garden septic works,” he paused, “And you have fewer enemies here.”</p>
<p>“Am I to interpret that as an olive branch?”</p>
<p>“Just math. I’m the only person here. So…”</p>
<p>“A pity,” Maleficent’s unnatural rouged lips curled into one of her familiar smirks, “<em>I’ve</em> come with an olive branch, you see.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Riku said dryly, continuing down the path.</p>
<p>“You wound me,” Maleficent drew up alongside him, seeming to walk in step with him, while not seeming to, well, <em>walk</em>. Riku hated magic.</p>
<p>“Well, the feeling’s mutual,” he turned to her, “Shouldn’t you and Pete be plotting to steal Easter or something?”</p>
<p>“You’ve developed a sense of humor,” she noted, “A refreshing change from my sulking boy prince.”</p>
<p>“You gave me a bedroom between the walking bag of bugs and the actual God of Death. Sorry I didn’t have the most inviting dinner conversation.”</p>
<p>“We both know it wasn’t on the <em>company’s</em> count that you were so surly in those days,” she chuckled, “Oh, yes, I remember you stalking off to the terrace to swing those silly wooden swords at whichever poor, scrawny Heartless you were able to conjure up.”</p>
<p>“You <em>taught</em> me to conjure them,” Riku pointed out, “Or did you want me to adopt one as a pet?”</p>
<p>“You may have benefitted from the company. You were so lonely…and angry, yes. Very angry. When you weren’t smacking Shadows, you were up in your room swearing at So…”</p>
<p>“Why are you here, Maleficent?” he demanded, his face reddening, “Is this some darkness-induced hallucination? Am I in the market for another set of moral lessons? Because, honestly, I don’t have the…”</p>
<p>“I regret to inform you, child, that I <em>am</em> here. Though I’m <em>flattered </em>that you imagine me so frequently as to mistake this visit for…”</p>
<p>“What are you doing here? How did you even <em>get</em> here? I was told nobody could do it.”</p>
<p>“<em>Almost</em> nobody. That dumpy old wish-granter isn’t the <em>only</em> fairy in creation, thankfully.”</p>
<p>Riku had about a thousand questions but, somehow, the first one he managed was, “You’re a…<em>fairy</em>?”</p>
<p>“What did you <em>think</em> I was? Lively asparagus?’</p>
<p>“I just…I assumed you were, yanno…a <em>witch</em>.”</p>
<p>“That’s <em>their</em> name for me,” she huffed dismissively, “It pleases them to make me sound more menacing.”</p>
<p>“Considering you led the armies of darkness on a galactic apocalypse spree…”</p>
<p>“Oh, I don’t deny I <em>am</em> menacing.”</p>
<p>“Or, at least, you <em>were</em>.”</p>
<p>Maleficent ignored him, “They decided ‘fairy’ wasn’t frightening enough. So, I get to be the ‘witch’, and your <em>other</em> magical benefactress gets to be everyone’s Fairy Godmother.”</p>
<p>“We both know you didn’t come here to whine. Whining was never your thing anyway. Usually, that was everyone <em>around</em> you…”</p>
<p>“With you as no exception, as I recall.”</p>
<p>Riku winced and Maleficent chuckled, “You have grown, Riku. Stronger, more assured. You walk in the darkest shadow uncorrupted and incorruptible. But,” she smiled, “Don’t doubt I could still turn you to a mound of ash here and now.”</p>
<p>“But you won’t.”</p>
<p>She inclined her head, “I won’t deny a certain fondness for you after all this time. We may have chosen different paths, but I have always admired your progress. In fact, I take some small credit.”</p>
<p>“Credit? That’s a laugh. Only if you think bringing out my worst impulses was a favor.”</p>
<p>“Wasn’t it?” she gestured toward him with her scepter, “You know even now that no one <em>made</em> you feel those feelings. Resentment, jealousy, anger…sadness,” she moved her hand over the green orb at the tip of the staff, conjuring an image of Riku as he had been once upon a time, sullen and staring at the blank wall of a spare castle room, one leg cocked up on the bed beneath his knee, his eyes staring in blank, burning hatred right into space…</p>
<p>Into <em>him</em>, his heart. Riku winced, “Fine. I was a snot-nosed cretin and you encouraged me to be…more like that. Congratulations. The mother I never had.”</p>
<p>“And the son I duly deserved,” Maleficent quipped, “Do you know what a ‘changeling’ is, child?’</p>
<p>“Your favorite appetizer?”</p>
<p>“A baby.”</p>
<p>“So, I was right?”</p>
<p>“My kind have an…old practice. When a fairy desires a child, she must go out into the world of mortal men and take one for herself, leaving behind a changeling. A baby identical to the taken child in all physical respects…only lacking some of the more…”</p>
<p>“Human qualities?” asked Riku uncertainly, “Like a replica?”</p>
<p>“Quite. I’d often imagined, when you were in my care, that you were my claimed child. I’d never had one before, you see. And, in my naivete, I convinced myself I’d gotten around the…troubles that come with changelings.”</p>
<p>“What kind of troubles?”</p>
<p>“You know replicas. Once they learn what they are, they become very resentful.”</p>
<p>“Against the real thing?”</p>
<p>“And the one who made them,” Maleficent slowed, “And, indeed, it was the real thing that did me in, wasn’t it?”</p>
<p>“That wasn’t me, and you know it. Ansem killed you.”</p>
<p>“Not without some help.”</p>
<p>The thought bothered Riku, as any thought of those times did. He remembered the suffocating terror of being trapped in his own body, manipulated by some dark force he couldn’t understand. The realization he’d been tricked, that he’d been outsmarted after all, after telling himself over and over that it was <em>Maleficent</em> he was playing, that he would only piggyback off her operation long enough to put Kairi back to rights and deal with Sora…</p>
<p>With Sora.</p>
<p>The feeling of the Keyblade driving itself into Maleficent’s heart, hearing the tear of the flesh, the horrible scream…</p>
<p>He’d honestly believed she couldn’t be killed. That she was ageless, eternal as the darkness she commanded. That first realization she <em>wasn’t</em>, that darkness was more powerful than she, than any one person, he’d finally realized what he’d gotten into.</p>
<p>And he’d been terrified.</p>
<p>“You were my changeling, Riku,” Maleficent was saying, “Claimant and changeling rolled into one. Indeed, I think we’re the only such pair to have both come out the better for it.”</p>
<p>“I’m not better <em>because</em> of you, Maleficent. It’s in spite of you. And even then…”</p>
<p>“Nonsense. One must get worse before one gets better. Whatever ‘better’ is. Such is the nature of katabasis.”</p>
<p>“The nature of…what?”</p>
<p>“Katabasis. The hero’s descent into the underworld. On such a quest, he must battle the worst parts of himself before ascending back to the world of light and the living,” she grimaced, “I’m sure Sora’s friend Hercules could tell you all about it.”</p>
<p>Riku considered, “So you’re saying <em>you</em> were my katabasis?”</p>
<p>“Certainly. And not the last. It seems to me your life has been one long chain of them,” she looked around, “This delightful spot being no exception.”</p>
<p>They had paused, Riku not even realizing it, at a bend in the mountain path, looking out at the wide, shadowy expanse of darkened mountains around them. No wind, no rain, nothing to even suggest he was as high up as he felt he was.</p>
<p>Riku had never been to the Underworld. But this couldn’t possibly be too far off.</p>
<p>“I wonder,” Maleficent said at last, “Is it worth it?”</p>
<p>“Is what worth it?”</p>
<p>“The spoils of your quest. The treasure you believe waits at the end of the path.”</p>
<p>“At the risk of sounding like the snot-rag you helped me to be, you aren’t my mother, Maleficent. And it’s none of your business.”</p>
<p>“Alas,” she sighed as they continued along the path, “I came all this way, though. So you will permit me to tell you a story?”</p>
<p>“If it gets rid of you faster.”</p>
<p>“I once knew a hero much like you. Young, brave, brash, pig-headed.”</p>
<p>“Did you teach <em>him</em> how to kill too?”</p>
<p>“Our relationship wasn’t nearly so amiable. Our paths crossed in a more…contentious manner. You see, he desired something I decided he could not have. A brilliant light, the most radiant in our world.”</p>
<p>“The Princess,” Riku realized, “Aurora.”</p>
<p>“He was in love with her,” Maleficent continued, “Smitten the way only foolish young men can be. They were bound by an old promise, but it wasn’t that oath that bound their hearts. <em>She</em> determined they’d met in another life, in a dream, her way of making sense of the familiarity between them. Though her words had more weight than she suspected.”</p>
<p>Riku waited for Maleficent to expand on this, but she didn’t, instead proceeding, “You know the Princess’s story.”</p>
<p>“You put her to sleep. And then you suckered Terra into…”</p>
<p>“That’s all immaterial,” she waved her hand dismissively, “Prince Phillip’s kiss was the only antidote to the sleeping death. Naturally, he couldn’t be allowed anywhere near her. So, I had him taken to my fortress in the mountains…”</p>
<p>“And then Aqua saved him, and they ran back to the palace, and you did your dragon trick, and they killed you.”</p>
<p>“Insolent boy,” she barked, her nostrils flaring. For the first time, Riku feared he may actually have provoked her to anger. His fingers closed around his Keyblade…</p>
<p>But Maleficent turned away, speaking in more measured tones, “That is the story <em>you</em> know. It isn’t the only story.”</p>
<p>“What…what are you talking about?”</p>
<p>“The mechanics are dreary and confusing, and I wouldn’t want to bore you. Suffice to say, I have lived the love story of Aurora and Phillip longer than you’ve been alive. I have presided over hundreds of spinning wheels, thousands of thorns, millions of love’s first kisses. I have watched ‘true love conquer all’ more times than I care to count.”</p>
<p>Riku considered, “You’re saying, before I met you, you were trapped in a time loop?”</p>
<p>“I tell you this,” she continued breezily, “To illuminate one particular instance of the fairy tale. I had apprehended Phillip, as I usually did. And as he reposed, miserable and sullen, in a dungeon cell, I told him (and I always told him), that I would not kill him.”</p>
<p>“How generous of you.”</p>
<p>“I thought so,” she granted, “There was no point, you see. By then, I had been forced to repeat the ordeal so many times, that I had begun to ponder whether I had been too excessive. Hundreds of thousands of daring escapes and bold rescues, all the force of my magic and a not inconsiderable army of enslaved goblin men…”</p>
<p>“You owned <em>slaves</em>?”</p>
<p>“…nothing I put in Phillip’s way would slow him. Of course, it wouldn’t. He was young, brave, bold…and madly in love. At that age, nothing stops love. So, I decided upon an alternative path. I would let Phillip live. And live, and live, and live.”</p>
<p>Riku shuddered, “You mean…as your prisoner? Forever?”</p>
<p>“Months turned to years. The kingdom remained asleep thanks to that imbecile Flora’s bleeding heart. More than once, the three so-called good fairies tried to intercede, but each time I thwarted them.”</p>
<p>“How?”</p>
<p>“Their magic can only do <em>good</em>. It can only be used in the service of <em>help</em>. So, I saw to it that the one person left in the world that they <em>could</em> help refused them.”</p>
<p>“You…convinced Phillip not to want rescuing?”</p>
<p>“There is power in a promise, child,” Maleficent’s eyes glinted, “Surely, you know <em>that</em>. Phillip and I made an arrangement. He would be my honored guest until the planets aligned in the winter sky, a date which, by our dominion’s astrologers, would indeed come in his lifetime…provided he lived another century. He agreed.”</p>
<p>“That’s…” Riku flinched, “That’s horrible.”</p>
<p>“Oh, you know I’ve done worse. Phillip agreed, in any case. Swore a solemn oath like the good little prince he was.”</p>
<p>“He couldn’t honestly believe he’d live another 100 years?”</p>
<p>“I couldn’t tell you <em>what</em> he believed. But he was determined to try. And, lo, years turned to decades. I watched the dance of the celestial bodies in the sky above. The movements of Theia, Tethys, Themis, Mnemosyne and Rhea as they slowly but surely drew closer to perfect latitude.</p>
<p>“Phillip had free reign of the fortress in this time. I would let him train at swords in the practice yard. Read arcane texts from the library, to keep his mind sharp. I told him of the origins of my race, the history of my people, the bond that tied me to that miserable world. In time, I came to respect him, in his way. He was a noble man, and his brashness tempered as he aged.”</p>
<p>“If you respected him, Maleficent, you wouldn’t have done what you did.”</p>
<p>“On the contrary. The fonder I grew for him, the more I realized what a waste it was that he should expend so much of himself on the thought of girl he’d met once when they were both barely older than you are now. But, you see, for <em>Phillip</em>, she wasn’t just the girl of that one meeting. She was <em>the</em> girl, the one he had met once upon a dream.”</p>
<p>“Do you think…could the dreams have been their way of remembering all the other times the story repeated?”</p>
<p>“I considered it, oh yes. However, the conclusion I drew is somewhat less fanciful,” again, however, she didn’t seem inclined to answer him, “20 years became 30, became 60, became 90. I watched as the Prince became old and grey. He required a cane to scale the weathered stone steps of the fortress, and his eyes were too weak to read, or even to see in the dark without a blazing torch right at hand. Even his memory began to fade, though never, <em>never</em> did he forget the princess who held his heart. The precious light of his dreams. I asked him once, in that 99<sup>th</sup> year, what he intended to do when he set out to revive the princess who, indeed, would thanks to the spell be no older than she’d been the day she closed her eyes to sleep.</p>
<p>“Phillip turned to me, addressing me by name, and said he had no expectations of making her his queen, nor even of courtship or the various other physical terrors lovers subject each other to. He knew the sun was setting on him. But it was his duty to save the princess before that time came. Nothing else mattered. I asked him, ‘For honor’s sake?’ and he told me, ‘For the dream’s’. She was his life, his light, his entire world.</p>
<p>“The planets lined up in the sky on a cold winter’s day in the 100<sup>th</sup> year since the Princess Aurora’s 16<sup>th</sup> birthday. I descended from my tower on that purple dawn to find Prince Phillip, clad in cloak and hat, heaving his trembling, skeletal limbs onto the back of a sickly horse. He turned to me, this ancient man, older now than the lifetimes of his father and grandfather combined, and I saw in his eyes a spark of the young adventurer I had hauled into my fortress so long ago, and so many times before. I experienced, then, a sensation I would not know again until you drove a Keyblade into my heart to drive me out of my mind.”</p>
<p>This time, Riku didn’t correct her about just who <em>had</em> stabbed her. Maleficent seemed almost…sad.</p>
<p>“I ordered my men to open the gates for him to pass. He saluted me as he rode on down the slopes. I watched from the ramparts where, in so many other lifetimes, I had lobbied curses and incantations, innumerable forests of thorns…</p>
<p>“All I could think was what a fool he was. I wanted to cry out at him. ‘Stop, you idiot! She’s nothing. Just a sleeping girl. And her sleep is restful, peaceful, she will dream of better worlds than this, of a life better than you or she could ever have had’. For you see, I knew what Phillip’s success meant. I knew it would all end again. And, indeed…I realized then that I had become accustomed to Phillip. Accustomed as I had never been to a mortal before.”</p>
<p>“He was your prisoner.”</p>
<p>“Was he? Riku, child, were <em>you</em> my prisoner?”</p>
<p>“That…” he flinched, “That isn’t the same.”</p>
<p>“He could’ve left at any time. He didn’t <em>need</em> to tell the good fairies to leave him be. At any moment, he may have pulled a daring rescue and gone right to the princess’s bedside. I’m sure he believed he could, and I know a thousand times over that he was more than capable. But he didn’t. He honored the oath he’d sworn me. And oaths are sacred things, I know. Or do you really think I truly <em>cared</em> enough to spend 16 years searching for one missing princess? But my words, though sworn in anger, were still sworn. And I had to honor them.</p>
<p>“A snow began to fall as Phillip reached the palace, the great structure long-since gone to ruin, the sleeping forms of servants and courtiers sprawled about among the detritus of long gone ages, entirely oblivious of the history that had passed in their somnolence. The aged man limped and staggered his way up weathered marble steps, reaching, at last, the room where the radiant maiden of his dreams slept in a bed long ago reduced to dust.”</p>
<p>Maleficent had stopped moving, looking off into the darkness, “I appeared in the room, in the shadows just out of his attention. My selfish thought had been to stop him now, slit his throat and finally release myself from the hell I’d been confined in. The oath had been honored, after all. I’d let him go at the appointed time. I had not <em>guaranteed</em> true love’s kiss. There was a moment, a bare moment, when I nearly did it. I saw 100 years pass in my eye in an instant…</p>
<p>“He kissed her. And Aurora awakened, frightened and confused as a little girl. She cried out to see the old man kneeling over her, though the cry turned soon to tears. She whispered a name, ‘<em>Phillip</em>’ as she held that weathered hand in hers, ‘<em>I dreamed of you</em>’.”</p>
<p>“He had no breath left to answer her.”</p>
<p>Riku’s voice was hoarse, “He…he died?’</p>
<p>“As though he’d willed himself to live just for that moment. His legs gave way beneath him. Aurora cried out his name as the sounds of others coming to throughout the ruined palace began echoing through a world that had known a century’s silence…”</p>
<p>“And…and then what happened?”</p>
<p>Maleficent turned to him, “And then, child, I was sitting at my court, being informed by my men that the Princess Aurora was alive and in hiding in a woodcutter’s cottage in a glen.”</p>
<p>“It just…it just kept going?”</p>
<p>“Of course, it did. As you so delicately pointed out, it wasn’t until your Keyblade precursors blundered along that the accursed cycle was finally broken. The 100-year experiment was my cleverest plan, the keenest strategy I ever devised for breaking that wheel. If he were anything like ordinary men, Phillip would’ve been dead long before the planets aligned in the sky. But love is a stubborn thing. It fights on long past the rest of the body has accepted fate.”</p>
<p>Riku studied Maleficent, her impassive, unchanging face. He felt this strange twisting in his gut. The tragedy of the story, the fact that, technically, it had never happened, and yet the tugging certainty that of <em>course</em> it had, even if there was only one person left alive in any world who remembered it.</p>
<p>“What happened the next time around?” he asked at last.</p>
<p>Maleficent looked at him, as if surprised he’d asked, “The next time around, I captured him, brought him to his cell, and watched as he called me an accursed witch, a sorceress, a fell enchantress, a succubus and worse. This man who I had spent 100 years with. Who I had grown some kinship toward. Who I had foolishly allowed to be almost a son to me. I swore then and there I wouldn’t make the same mistake again…”</p>
<p>She looked him over, “And then, Riku, along comes you.”</p>
<p>They were walking again, though Riku wasn’t entirely sure when they’d started, “You used me, Maleficent. The same way you used Phillip. That isn’t <em>love</em> or…or affection. It’s just cruel. Evil.”</p>
<p>“I don’t doubt it. I <em>am</em> the Mistress of All Evil, you know. Still, I had hope for you. I still do, in fact. Hence, my visit to you now, with my tale, and my warning.”</p>
<p>“Warning?”</p>
<p>“You asked me what was meant by Aurora and Phillip claiming, again and again, to have met in dreams. I had ages to ponder the mystery. And it <em>seemed</em>, as you said, that they may be remembering their other lives, the many other times my little tragedy was forced to replay itself.</p>
<p>“And yet, how did that explain the very <em>first</em> time? For there <em>was</em> a first time, when I was as ignorant of the cruel twist of fate coming for all of us as the two insipid lovers were. It wasn’t until darkness had descended on our world and I had finally begun my campaign that I began to understand.</p>
<p>“In one world, a scullery maid works her fingers to the bone so she can dance at the royal ball. She shares one dance with the prince and, though they have never met, they realize at once that this is love. In another, a maiden offers herself as captive in a hideous beast’s castle, to save her father’s life. Her sacrifice saves her father and redeems the beast, breaking an ancient curse. In yet another world, a princess is chased into exile by the madness of a vengeful queen. She holds out hope for a man chance met at a wishing well, insisting time and again, as if she has seen it etched in stone, that someday her prince will come. And he does. They always do. Every time, in every place.”</p>
<p>“The Princesses of Heart,” said Riku, “They all had <em>that</em> in common. It’s not crazy that there’d be other patterns.”</p>
<p>“But it isn’t just <em>them</em>, child. These ties that bind: humble beginnings, forced separations, old magic, wicked villains,” she smiled somewhat indulgently, “The impossible, logic defying hope, transcending dream and prayer, that what was rent apart can be reunited again someday. A force greater than light, more consuming than darkness. A power so great that it sustained an old man to live well past his years for the sake of a dream. It is <em>the</em> story. The only story. A tale as old as time.”</p>
<p>“You’re taking about love, Maleficent.”</p>
<p>“And the madness it brings. The destruction it drives, and the lives it destroys.”</p>
<p>“Maleficent, did you ever consider that these particular love stories ended badly because you showed up 10 minutes after curtain call to usher in the end of days?”</p>
<p>“Do not be cavalier with me, child,” Maleficent said sharply, “My warning is meant truly. I will not see you driven past reason.”</p>
<p>“What are you talking about?”</p>
<p>“You know as well as I the purpose of your quest. The one you seek at the end of this benighted road. You are no different from Phillip, walking along a path to destruction because your heart sang you a pretty song!”</p>
<p>Riku gritted his teeth, “Shut up, Maleficent.”</p>
<p>“I am no fool, Riku. And you have <em>never</em> been able to lie to me, however clever you may think. I asked you a question once, and I will ask it again, and this time, you <em>will</em> answer me true: <em>Why do you still care about that boy</em>?”</p>
<p>Riku had faced death more times than he knew how to count. He’d been as good as killed his fair share of times. Had stood his ground against a column of Heartless, entirely expecting he’d never come out the other side. Maleficent, the wicked, somewhat silly, old witch who’d scooped him off the streets of an alien town a whole lifetime ago, wasn’t supposed to have any fear for him anymore.</p>
<p>And yet he was afraid.</p>
<p>“I…” he faltered, “Sora is my friend. My best friend. And he <em>can</em> be saved…”</p>
<p>“And you the one to save him?” she demanded, “As Phillip was the one to save Aurora. Ferdinand to save Snow White. Belle to save that wretched Beast. I know this madness well, Riku, and it is not madness brought on by <em>friendship</em>…”</p>
<p>Riku lifted his Keyblade, letting out a cry as he lunged…</p>
<p>Maleficent’s scepter met the blade halfway, pinning him in place, “You may play your schoolyard games with the rest of that pack of naifs and livestock, but you cannot deceive <em>me</em>, Riku. I stared in the eyes of a lovesick man for 100 years, from the moment he vowed to wait for his love, to the moment he dropped dead at her bedside. You’ve not lived a fraction of his years, and I see that same love in you.”</p>
<p>Riku didn’t know what did it. Maleficent’s harshness, the general helplessness of his quest, the loneliness of this mountain, the sadism of poor Phillip and Aurora…the image of the old man, his work finally done, dropping in a heap.</p>
<p>His legs wobbled beneath him. He lowered his Keyblade, feeling hot tears prickling at his eyes.</p>
<p>“We…” he said at last, “We <em>do</em> keep getting separated, that’s one thing.”</p>
<p>“Among many,” Maleficent’s tone, while never gentle, had at least softened.</p>
<p>“The first time, though…” Riku nodded slowly, “That first time, it was <em>me</em>. I chose leave him. I chose to be petty and angry and miserable. I chose you.”</p>
<p>Maleficent said nothing to this.</p>
<p>“I hurt him and shunned him. I tried to <em>kill</em> him…” the tears flowed freely now…he could barely remember the last time he’d cried, “He looked for me anyway. And when I…when I couldn’t even recognize myself…when <em>he </em>couldn’t recognize me… He brought me back. And I…” a sob racked his body, such that it hurt him, “I never…I’ve never told him what it meant. What <em>he </em>means. And if he’s out there, if he’s in trouble…I have to do for him what he did for me. Because…”</p>
<p>“Because, child?”</p>
<p>Riku pressed his eyes shut, “Because I love him.”</p>
<p>For the first time, Riku felt a wind whistle on the mountain. A fragrant summer’s wind, bringing with it the smell of the sea, of wildflowers and citrus and sand baking in the hot sun. Maybe he’d imagined it, or maybe Maleficent was humoring him…</p>
<p>Or maybe this place wasn’t as dead as it appeared. With the right influences.</p>
<p>“I love him more than I’ve ever loved anybody,” he continued, “Maleficent, I don’t…I don’t expect you to understand.”</p>
<p>“But I do. Unless you forgot my fairly impressive story, I have first-hand experience of this kind of…derangement.”</p>
<p>“I’m not deranged.”</p>
<p>“You understand the danger of this course? People do not go where you’re going and return.”</p>
<p>“Then it’s a risk I’ll have to take. Sora needs me.”</p>
<p>“Phillip…”</p>
<p>“Phillip lived 100 years with you. And whatever…fondness you developed for him, his life couldn’t be complete without the person he loved, even if he had to die to save her. <em>That’s</em> the lesson, Maleficent. Not that it wasn’t worth it.”</p>
<p>“You’re greater than Phillip ever was. Smarter, stronger, more skilled with that blade, <em>and</em> chosen by the Keyblade. Your life <em>means</em> something beyond that insipid, fallen hero…”</p>
<p>“My life <em>does</em> mean something, Maleficent. Believe me…if I had a say, I wouldn’t be here right now. It’s very depressing. I want to see the worlds. I want to train and learn. I want to see the islands again. And my <em>friends</em>… I want to see them all. Kairi doesn’t deserve to be alone again. And Terra…I owe Terra so much, and I barely even got a chance to talk to him. And I owe Roxas an apology. Xion too. I…” another stray tear dropped from his lash, “I owe lots of people apologies. And I want to have a life. And I want to grow old and die so far ahead of all this that it all feels like a dream.”</p>
<p>He smiled, “But if I go back and do all that now, it’ll be hollow. Incomplete. Because Sora isn’t there, and I could’ve done something about that. I may be the only one who can.”</p>
<p>“<em>Why</em>?” Maleficent demanded, “Foolish boy. Why <em>you</em>?”</p>
<p>“Because,” he told her, “I took an oath too.”</p>
<p>Maleficent leaned back, her hands gripping the scepter. Nodding slowly, she said, “You will stay the course, then?”</p>
<p>“I have to.”</p>
<p>She sighed, turning back to the edge of the path, looking out into the darkness, “It would be a…great loss if you died.”</p>
<p>“Thanks for that.”</p>
<p>“Clearly, I can convince you no further.”</p>
<p>“Leaving?” Riku was almost sad to see her go, “What will you do?”</p>
<p>“Ah,” she shrugged, “There are any number of plans to work along, scores to settle, ancient arcana to seek out,” she smirked, “And, failing that, there’s always stealing Christmas.”</p>
<p>The orb at the tip of her scepter began to glow, “Travel well, Riku. And, if you find the hero…bring him back, if you can.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t think you cared.”</p>
<p>“But of course, I do,” she smirked, “He’s one of my many grudges.”</p>
<p>Another burst of flame, and she was gone. Riku was alone on the mountaintop, nothing but that strange, sea-scented wind blowing through his hair.</p>
<p>Which was more company than he’d had before.</p>
<p>“If that’s you,” he muttered, “Props for subtlety. Wonder where you picked <em>that</em> up?”</p>
<p>He continued down the path, letting the wind guide him.</p>
<p>“I’m coming, Sora. Just hold out a little longer, will ya? We…”</p>
<p>
  <em>We have a lot to talk about.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This idea popped into my head when walking the dog three dogs ago. I had in mind the old pencil illustrations from Dante's Inferno,  that would have the two guys walking down this big mountain together and I thought "What if that, but Kingdom Hearts?" and that's how my thought process goes.</p>
<p>I love the idea of Maleficent being stuck in a fairy tale time loop in Union X, though I lack the faith in that particular installment to reveal anything interesting about the concept. Still.</p>
<p>Also, such a crime that Riku and Maleficent haven't had any interactions at all since KH1, unless you count the hallucination in Reverse/Rebirth. And, no, the thing in KH3 doesn't count. Different Riku.</p>
<p>We're all super stoked for the next installment, right? I mean, even if it doesn't come out in two years? Because Riku is gonna find Sora and they're gonna be very gay even if they don't try!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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